Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Its 2013. My garden is still alive, but not a whole lot of growth going on due to the cold.  My cabbage, broccoli, collards, and spinach  plants have all survived well, but have grown very little the past month.
I've been able to harvest and eat 2 cabbages, some collards and some turnips too.  The lettuce in the garden is barely hanging on, and looks pretty beat up by the cold,  I've been supplementing with some lettuce  from a large planter box that I bring into our sun-room when it gets really cold outside. (below 30)


I have 2 celery plants in small pots that I grew from the base of used store-bought vegetables.


I still have them in pots, since I am not sure how much cold they can handle, so when it gets real cold, I will bring them in at night. 
 
 I also planted  some base sections from store-bought leeks.  I  planted 2 of those in the garden, and am curious to see what they look like when they come up. 


The other big news is that we cut down the tree next to the garden area, a cypress tree. That will allow me to greatly expand my garden space next spring, and be better equipped to have a better fall garden next year with more sunny areas.   I felt a little bad because it was a very nice tree, but we already have lots of other trees in the yard, and as it kept growing, it kept encroaching into my garden space, and its roots were quite invasive,  coming up into the raised beds.

Since my son is a monkey, and much better at climbing than I, he was more than happy to climb up the tree and tie a rope, so we could pull on it after the tree was cut at the mid-way point,so it didn't fall on my boat, or on the garden.  This is a picture after it was cut.  All that new space!!!



 I have already began the expansion.  I added about a 4ft by 5ft raised bed area.  The 2 older cabbages are where the old bed ended.  The smaller one to the right is one I had in a pot, and planted there afterwards.